Mark Masterson
Research Interests
Ancient Sexuality and Gender, Late Antiquity, Roman Empire, Masculinity Studies
Qualifications
PhD Classics and Gender Studies Certificate (USC)
Research specialties
Mark's research focuses on ancient sexuality and gender, late antiquity, and Roman society. He enjoys directing readings of plays in the spring. In 2009 it was Euripides' Ion in Mary-Kay Gamel’s translation, in 2010 the Orestes, 2011 Plautus’ Curculio in Amy Richlin’s translation, in 2012 Menander’s The Samian Girl, and in 2013 it was Seneca’s Troades (which turned out to be curiously effective).
Current research projects
Mark's book on same-sex desire in late-Roman manhood, "Man to Man: Desire, Homosociality, and Authority in Late-Roman Manhood", will appear from Ohio in late 2014. Also to appear in late 2014 are an article on obscenity in the works of Iamblichus and Arnobius (Journal of Early Christian Studies) and a chapter on elite late-Roman manhood and physiognomy. The latter is to appear in a large volume essays by a number of scholars on sexuality in antiquity, called Sex in Antiquity. The volume will be published by Routledge and Mark is one of its editors. Mark is currently continuing investigation of the Codex Theodosianus and is also branching out into Byzantium, considering possible connections between same-sex desire and emperor Basil II.
Publications
Erotics and Friendship in Emperor Julian’s Fourth Oration, Scholia 19 [2010]: 79-110.
It’s Queer, It’s like Fate’: Tracking Queer in O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra, Helios 38.2 [2011]: 9-25.
Status, Pay and Pleasure in the De Architectura of Vitruvius, (American Journal of Philology 125.3 [2004]: 387-416).
The Visibility of ‘Queer’ Desire in Eunapius’ Lives of the Philosophers” Proceedings of the Australasian Society of Classical Studies 32 [2011] (4500 words)
Impossible Translation: Antony and Paul the Simple in the Historia Monachorum," in The Boswell Thesis (University of Chicago Press, 2006). 215-235.
Statius' Thebaid and the Realization of Roman Manhood. (Phoenix 59.3-4 [2005]: 288-315.
Review of N.W. Bernstein. 2008. In the Image of the Ancestors: Narratives of Kinship in Flavian Epic (Mnemosyne 64 [2011]: 511-514).
Review of Nussbaum and Sihvola. 2002. The Sleep of Reason (American Journal of Philology 124.3 [2003]: 477-81)
Review of Andrea Scheithauer. 2000. Kaiserliche Bautätigkeit in Rom: Das Echo in der antiken Literatur (The Classical Review 53.1 N.S. [2003]: 122-23).
Review of M. Rühl. 2006. Literatur gewordener Augenblick. Die Silven des Statius im Kontext literarischer und sozialer Bedingungen von Dichtung (The Classical Review 58.2 [2008]: 483-485).
Review of Beert C. Verstraete and Vernon Provencal, eds. Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Journal of the History of Sexuality 17.3 [2008]: 489-496).
Review of McNelis, Charles. 2007. Statius' Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War (American Journal of Philology 129.3 [2008]: 436-438).
Capturing the Gaze (Mark Hutchins Gallery, Wellington [2010]) [21 pages; ISBN 978-0-473-16592-5).
Remarks on the Teaching of Virgil’s Aeneid, (NZACT Bulletin 37.1 [2010]: 10-17).
Awards
Mark has won the Rehak Prize at the 2007 meeting of the American Philological Association. The Rehak Prize is awarded to the author of the best article or book published in the last three years on gender or sexuality in the ancient world. The piece for which Mark won his award is his piece "Impossible Translation: Antony and Paul the Simple in the Historia Monachorum" in the new book from the University of Chicago Press, The Boswell Thesis (2006).